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ONM Pokéforum

ONM Pokéforum was a sub forum of the UK magazine Official Nintendo Magazine's forums dedicated to Pokémon. The majority of its members were of British origin. Some of its members have become well known in some of the bigger forums.

Contents

Competitive Battling

Most members in the ONM Pokéforum focus on Wi-fi battling, following the Smogon standard rules. However over the past few years the use of Shoddy Battle has increased, and may become the main source of competitive battling on the forum. The forum has two main threads dedicated to battling, which are the Online Communications thread and the Battle Shop thread. The Pokéforum also has a number of Gyms which can be challenged, as well as offer a fair amount of tournaments.

Battle Shop

The Pokémon Battle Shop has been running for many years on the Pokéforum. It has had many versions. Battlers in this thread battle each other for points, which they then use to buy Pokémon that have been IV bred, EV trained Pokémon, or Shiny Pokémon. The other methods of getting points to spend is either by donating Pokémon, or by defeating the ONM Gyms. Some members have devoted themselves to getting more points, rather than actually spending the points, and in this sense, the Battle Shop has become a ladder of sorts. The Battle Shop often has double point weekends and such to encourage the forumers to battle. The Battle Shop thread keeps the Pokéforum active in competitive battling in-between the tournaments. The Battle Shop currently has over 120 members.

ONM Gyms

The ONM Gyms thread is currently in its seventh version. There have been many versions before, but all have been closed due to lack of challengers or inactivity of the Gym Leaders. The current Gym thread was made after the previous had run out of its character limit. Some of the current Gym leaders have been leaders since November 2008 after the Gym thread was introduced back into the Pokéforum due to popular demand. Although the current thread sees periods of activity and inactivity, it has consistently had enough challengers to keep it open. The most recent leaders were as follows:

Dragon Gym - omega pit 626

Poison Gym - Kinneas

Steel Gym - SilverLight

Psychic Gym - tblakey89

Flying Gym - Wildfire1313

Normal Gym - Edd_15

Electric Gym - dark_hunter

Ice Gym - PenguinX

Bug Gym - Akiba

Ground Gym - King Meta Knight

The Official ONM Tournaments

The Official ONM Tournaments have been going on since the Pokéforum was created. The tournaments are normally referred to as 'ONM' with the number of the tournament on the end, e.g. 'ONM2' for the second of these tournaments. There have currently been seven of these tournaments in total. They normally have 64 combatants and the rounds are done in single elimination style. The games are played using the Smogon standard ruleset. Despite the fact there have been seven tournaments, there have only ever been four champions, due to Havak winning it four times. The tournament currently normally occurs every 6-12months.

ONM Champions

ONM1: Murphy

ONM2: Havak

ONM3: Havak

ONM4: Havak

ONM5: Monty123

ONM6: Havak

ONM7: Kinneas

Forum Wars

The ONM Pokéforum has taken place in quite a few forum wars. With some of the more notable adversaries as Marriland and The Elite Connection. The Pokéforum however tends to lose more than it wins when it comes to forum wars. The ONM Pokéforum also took part in the Team Uber interforum tournament, where it lost in the first round to Gamefaqs.

Other Pokémon Topics

IRC

The ONM Pokéforum has its own IRC #pokeforum on the synIRC server. This IRC normally has between 10 and 20 people in it, and helps to keep the forum active.

Pokémon Game Topics

These tend to be formed after a new version of Pokémon is announced, such as Pokémon HeartGold and SoulSilver. The threads give the members of the Pokéforum the opportunity to discuss the latest discoveries and rumors about the various games.

The Official Favourite Pokémon Thread

Each month the members of the Pokéforum vote on who is their favorite Pokémon. This thread started in August 2009, and in its first month had a four way tie between the four Pokémon; Mewtwo, Charizard, Espeon and Scizor.
The current iteration is by Chained Teapot, and was created in March 2011. It has many polls.

ONM Sprite Threads

There have been a number of sprite threads in the Pokéforum in its existence.
The first was made by Rangersgreg to lower common forum topics requesting Sprites and Splices.
After it died it was remade by Sparkle but was less successful.
Supernintendo ran a third iteration, but was also less successful.
The current iteration, created by Nyaro, also incorporates other art, and can be found here

ONM Pokéforum Fan-made Games

Over the years there have been numerous projects to create and program Pokémon-esque games with the members of the ONM Pokéforum. None of these games have been successfully completed within the Pokéforum, however some have been moved to their own website or forum to continue creation.

At this time, the fan-game Pokémon Dawn is being created by members of the forum. This effort is notable as the lead programmer and owner of the thread is SamuriFerret, a moderator of the ONM forums. Hence, the thread can be kept under control and within the limits of the rules on ONM.